Everlast Online

"I grant thee peerage amongst the aristocracy of Vradoran society." King Geoffrey called out, there were no dissenters amongst the crowd as despite a few looking down on the trio as commoners, everyone knew it was they who had bested Kilgard - the threat of Ouroboros having not been fully revealed.

"To the leader of this brave triage of heroes, I grant the title: Viscountess Elizabeth Silver." A round of applause followed the announcement as 2 messages appeared in front of Liz:

Liz smiled at gaining even more rewards. She was somewhat worried about using her real name, but it would be hard to convince the king that Smokey wasn't just an alias - and besides, Liz liked her name; she liked it a lot, even if it was given to her by her parents.

King Geoffrey then went on to name Nina and Gloria as barons. Truthfully, this was an agreement they had come to the night before; deciding to have Liz take the highest title and further absorb 3 territories into one another that the 3 would rule together. While technically the size of a lord's territory was limited by their title, there was nothing wrong with 3 neighbouring lords working closely together and not collecting a toll as residents passed from one place to another.

Nina, who had used her real name as her ID, became Baroness Atonina Litrav and Gloria became Baroness Gloria Silian - having insisted on being considered my vassal, something a viscount would not normally have. But it was allowed anyway. 

The rewards didn't end there, but the list was not as extensive as Liz believed it would be.

"However, I don't believe mere peerage is enough of a reward and so, I decree that each of the heroes may take an item from the Vradoran Royal Treasury!" Shocked gasps echoed through the audience hall despite Liz not really understanding.

It's just one item, is it all that special? Liz thought, though she didn't let it show. As it seemed that a number of nobles were about to say something, the king spoke up once again -  the weight of his voice pushing down any dissent.

The nobles hushed to a quiet whisper of disdain as the ceremony continued, Ragnar and Barview also receiving rewards for their part in killing Ouroboros, as well as some of the more exemplary soldiers that had managed to remain conscious during Ouroboros's first wave of intimidation.

It took hours, but eventually the ceremony ended. With the nobles leaving, returning to their territories or mansions in the capital there were 2 more matters left to be dealt with: The granting of territory and the royal treasury.

"I will no guide you into the royal treasury." King Geoffrey said once everyone but Ragnar had left, this surprised Liz as she had not expected the single person in the country to be the one to guide her, "You see young ones, there are two treasuries in Vradora: The treasury and the royal treasury."

"The first is the kingdom's budget as well as a number of valuable items. Things like important paintings or jewelry of significant value." King Geoffrey continued as he stood and pulled an ornate golden key from his pocket, "The second, however..."

King Geoffrey turned to reveal his back to Liz, Nina and Gloria, moving one of his throne's cushions to reveal a keyhole. Once the key was slotted and twisted a subtle rumbling could be felt in the throne room as the titular throne began to split into 2 pieces. It was like a work of mechanical genius that Liz had not expected from such a mediaeval kingdom. What was revealed was a staircase leading deep into the castle's subterranean basements.

"The second, is much closer to a museum." He explained, leading the trio down the stairs with Ragnar closing the entrance behind them, "A collection of national treasures and powerful magical items collected throughout the history of Vradora."

"Some items belonged to great heroes, others to great kings and queens. Some were simply found in hidden ruins and unfathomable powers - worthy of keeping secret." King Geoffrey said as the trio arrived at a large open area.

2 men stood guard in front of a dull-looking door, their faces and bodies obscured beneath black cloaks. In their hands were 2 spears that seemed to radiate power.

As the king approached the door they pointed their spears directly at him before he spoke in a language that Liz couldn't understand, after which their weapons were lowered. Liz had been surprised time after time during this ordeal and quickly began to understand just how important the royal treasury really was. The king stepped forward unimpeded and placed his hand on the door, once again speaking in a language Liz could not recognise. The door began to light up and an image depicting a warrior with a sword was depicted in golden light before the door dematerialised and revealed a number of glass boxes inside; all containing treasures that Liz and her friends were free to take.

"You may each take an item, but I must ask that you refrain from taking the founding blade." The king said, pointing right at a large and greatly damaged greatsword at the far end of the treasury, "It was the weapon used by the founding king and is a symbol of this kingdom - it is the only item I must insist remains in the treasury."

The trio of girls agreed and were allowed into the treasury to select an item.

Nina ran around with child-like glee while Gloria carefully inspected the items to find what would best suit her.

Liz seemed to be a mix of both as she could not hide her excitement; inspecting each of the items she passed:

[Traitor's Scalpel (S+): A scalpel used by a prolific killer within Vradora who had went mad after failing to save his own child during a surgery]

[Severed Serpent (S-): A statue of one half of a snake found deep within a ruin]

[Behemoth Horn (S+): A horn of one of the 10 largest creatures in existence; it has remained unprocessed due to also being one of the hardest materials known to exist]

[...]

Liz couldn't see the actual abilities or information of any of these items because of the glass, the information she was given came from plaques below their casings. The items ranged in size from something as small as a crystal ladybug to the behemoth horn that took up 7 metres alone - it was imposing and Liz considered taking it, but she decided not to as she had no means of processing it.

Liz kept looking around, Nina had also calmed down a little to think about what she would take into consideration; Gloria on the other hand had already narrowed her choices down to 3 items:

[Bloodied Veil (S): A veil worn by the Mad Queen of Vradora, the 12th royal of Vradora who, after losing all of her children to an aristocratic plot, went mad and destroyed 15 noble families]

[Masochist's Shackle (S+): An item recovered by the 2nd king of Vradora after freeing a community of slaves]

[Blood Seeker (S-): A bladed whip that was inflicted with a powerful curse after being used to slaughter a cities entire population]

Many of the items collected within the royal treasury were not the same as other powerful items, they were relics - a completely different class of item that were not created with the intention of being powerful; in reality many of them would likely have been rather mundane. However, they had history,

Large historical events that shaped the world around them and the emotions bled into the items, transforming them into relics. It was their history that gave them power and so knowing the history of a relic could easily allow a person to guess at what they may be capable of. Of course not every item in the royal treasury was a relic, some were regular items too valuable to be placed into the regular treasury such as the behemoth's horn which was an item that could only be looted from a legendary ranked creature.

Liz envied Gloria, not finding a single items that drew her attention - other than the one thing she was not permitted to take:

[Liberty (L+): The sword used by the first king of Vradora to free himself and many others such that he could form the country of Vradora]

Something about the tale of escaping the life of oppression seemed to call out to Liz; she couldn't help herself from glancing at it nonstop. 

Eventually, Nina and Gloria had decided upon the items they wanted to take. Gloria had ultimately decided on the [Masochist's Shackle], being incredibly impressed by its ability to reduce any self-inflicted damage by 50%, an incredibly high amount for an item with that kind of purpose - it seemed to be an item tailor made for berserker-type classes whose skills typically drained HP in order to be used.

Nina's choice was an item called the [Duplicant Earring] that bound itself to another piece of equipment and could create up to 5 near perfect copies (75% power) of whatever it was bound to. It would take 5 minutes to bind and another 10 to unbind, but it was simply perfect for Nina whose [Blade Juggling] skill improved with more knives to throw; the catkin was especially excited to discover that since her [Black Dahlia Blades] were technically 1 piece of equipment due to being a set she could create 5 of each - ultimately ending up with 10 blades she could throw at will as the duplications could be recalled/resummoned by activating she skill again. Between her duplicated knives and her magic cards Nina was simply swimming in throwing weapons she could use.

Liz began to feel pressured to choose something and simply decided to relent.

Guess I'll just pick something random. Liz sighed as she walked through a row of cases deep within the treasury, but it was right as she was going to head back to the scalpel she had found that something overcame her.

That same feeling she had looking at [Liberty] was rushing through her body; her head turned almost robotically as she found herself staring at the least impressive looking item of anything in the entire treasury: A dirty black book.

[Black Book (F-): A strange black book that defies appraisal. It is rumoured to be as old as {Liberty} itself as no one remembers exactly when it entered the Royal Treasury, but despite that it is seemingly a normal book]

The description and appearance of the book screamed at Liz that it was nothing special. It's rating was low and no one even knew what was inside as it couldn't be opened, but her gut told her something else - this book was what she needed.

Just having this book would change everything for her.

She didn't know what came over her, Liz was not the type to trust her gut, prefering to act on logic and reasoning even if she was often brash and reckless. Yet, this did not feel to her like she was being reckless as the casing unlocked and the book fell into her hands. As she met up with the others the king and Ragnar gave her a strange look.

"That's the one you're choosing?" King Geoffrey asked, the black book being the second most known item in the royal treasury due to its low rank, "Are you sure, that's the one you want?"

"... I'm sure." Liz was resolute in her decision, she wasn't sure what it was, but there was something about the book.

"Well, I suppose there is something special about the book." The king remarked, remembering all the strange tales about the black book. It was an F-ranked item and yet no one had taken it out of the royal treasury, even though he had never even considered it. Many items had been taken out of the royal treasury during its history, but somehow that book had not come up as a possible subject for removal even once.

The king smiled and the girls placed all of the items in the inventory (Gloria's in Liz's) before heading back up to decide upon the territory they would take. Liz was surprised at how quick it took, but less surprised after remembering just how many fiefs had just recently lost their owners.

It was quickly decided that Liz and her friends would take an area of land in the north of Vradora, quite close to the free territory between the Great Mouth Canyon and Vradora. Since it was free territory it was technically available for expansion, but that was easier said than done - between accidentally encroaching on gnome and dwarf territory, the inhospitable environment and the native monsters, it would surely be difficult to go beyond Vradoran borders.

It was a fairly inhospitable area due to the lower temperatures turning it into a rather icey climate with much snow. Liz wasn't too worried about that though, she planned on leaving management of her territory to a third party while reaping the tax benefits in order to further increase her wealth for Piper's sake - not that she needed it after getting a million gold.

Everything was quickly sorted since Liz didn't care all that much about her territory and the king had an abundance after the coup. With the territories decided, the king specially sent them off in express carriages to see their new land such that what would normally be a week-long journey would become only a few hours thanks to the magic of the Spirali race. They were small creatures that could use a special spatial magic that allowed them to travel along what they called the wavelength of reality and as such travel much faster - even if the wavelengths were supposedly random, making their services very expensive. Unfortunately, the Spirali were the only ones who could use this magic so none was able to tell if they were lying to get more money.

The trio arrived at Liz's territory to find it was practically a ghost town, the main city was smaller than she expected with only a few people and shops here and there. The place was run down and the only building that looked even half decent was the mansion atop a hill overlooking the city. The people were thin and dispirited, barely glancing at the lavishly dressed trio that were walking through the street.

"Holy shit..." Nina mumbled, pitying the state of the city. For Liz it was like looking outside of her old house.

Maybe I should stick around a little... Liz thought, feeling there would be greater benefit in actually improving the city here. Her territory wasn't large so this was the only actual city under her control. I won't even be able to hire a manager if I don't sort this out first.

The trio finished their walk through the city fairly quickly, understanding the state it was in pretty quickly. Their next goal was the mansion on the hill - Liz's mansion on the hill. From the reports, the lord who previously ruled this city didn't care at all for the commoners, the viscount had even killed all of his staff in a bout of paranoia after being recruited to Kilgard's cause.

Morbidly, that had been a selling point for Liz. The lack of staff would make things easier for Liz who didn't want to spend a lot of money where she didn't need to.

Reaching the mansion, the facade of grandeur wore off quickly. The place was obviously not well taken care of; the garden was overgrown and had been allowed to spread without any control; while the building had become quite dirty with cracks running along the bricks. The inside was no better as despite the lavish gold and fabrics as well as a distasteful portrait of the previous lord almost entirely naked, riding a dragon that Liz vowed to destroy personally; everything was covered in layers of dust and grime with rodents running across the foyer.

"Haah..." Liz sighed, "Let's go sit down in there and look at our stuff before we start doing anything about this mess."

The others nodded and headed into what appeared to be a waiting room. They sat down in the surprisingly soft, but unsurprisingly filthy chairs; causing dust to explode through the room and make Nina cough - Liz and Gloria not having the compulsion as undead that didn't need to breathe.

Nina and Gloria showed off their items first:

[Masochist's Shackle (S+): A solid black bracelet created through the desire for a slave to escape his pain. Reduces the all self-inflicted damage by 50%]

[Duplicant Earring (S): An earring created by a powerful illusion mage. +20% Magic damage. Allows use of skill {Duplicate}]

• [Duplicate (A): Allows user to create up to 5 copies of any item it is bound to with 75% of the ability of the original] [Bound Item: {Black Dahlia Blades (C+)}]

These were exceptional items for the style of fighting each girl used; as a result it made Liz's choice of item all the more abnormal:

[Black Book (F-): A strange black book that cannot be opened]

"Why did you choose this one?" Nina asked, "It seems shit."

"I'll have to agree with Miss Nina here, master." Gloria chimed in, "Of all the items on display, I'm certain all of them were superior to what you chose."

"I know." Liz said dispiritedly, "But I got a gut feeling, one I'm still feeling now. Like the book was calling out to me..."

The other 2 were silent for a moment before Gloria said something.

"That may very well be true, master. Perhaps its real purpose is hidden and something within your soul awakened its powers."

Soul! An idea hit Liz like a ton of bricks. There was not much special about her, except for her soul abilities. Such rare abilities that don't just use the soul, but directly interact with it. She didn't hesitate to activate [Soul String] , extending her soul out towards the book.

As it approached nothing changed and Liz began to think she was wrong, but upon contact she proved Gloria's assumption true. The moment her made contact with the book it lit up in ethereal colours, patterns growing along the cover gradually winding around one another until it took the shape of a skull and the final change: A title, burning itself into the leather cover with turquoise flames:

[Book of the Damned]

Before Liz and the others could even comprehend what that meant the book floated into the air and almost ripped itself open, the same turquoise flames burning into the pages as runic words were inscribed into a seemingly never ending number of pages. The final act of pomp portrayed by the book was its finale: Exploding into ethereal cinders that rushed into Liz's head like metal to a magnet.

Nina was simply staring at Liz who had once again completely shattered any common sense:

"What the hell was that book!?" She yelled, regretting not having chosen the book herself as she distinctly remembered walking past the book.

But before Liz can even say a word a message appears in front of her, one that stops her in her tracks. Fury, despair and dread running through her eyes before she logged out of the game without saying a word to anyone:

[Miss Maritta: There's an emergency!]

[Miss Maritta: Bailey, Piper and Jess are gone!]

Elizabeth Gray was about to go nuclear on the ones who had dared harm her family; and it was not going to be pretty.